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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis

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To: Les H who wrote (36309)	12/31/1999 9:31:00 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) of 99985

Late Fix for FAA Y2K Glitch Reuters 1:45 p.m. 30.Dec.1999 PST A Year 2000 software glitch that could have caused controllers to briefly see planes in old positions was fixed Thursday as government officials played down union charges that it could have endangered passengers. "It is a very, very minor issue," Federal Aviation Administration chief Jane Garvey told reporters at the White House Y2K command center. Read ongoing Y2K coverage The problem had the potential to cause computers that help air traffic controllers manage high-altitude traffic to display images of where the planes had been up to 10 seconds earlier. FAA certified all its equipment as ready at the end of June but precautionary testing has continued. The union representing technicians that fix the air traffic control system equipment, which is in contract negotiations with the FAA, said the federal agency has scrambled to fix the system while maintaining a public facade that everything was under control. "After bragging about compliance, the agency has to scramble at the last minute to meet its responsibilities," said Professional Airways System Specialists regional vice president Tom Demske. FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the problem was a genuine Y2K glitch involving confusion over the 2000 date but one that would require an exact sequence of failures in the "host" computers. Those computers manage data at 20 FAA centers that track planes at cruising altitude. Takemoto said the "host" computers have a backup data saving system that is designed to quickly provide the most recent information on aircraft positions in the event of a host computer failure. For the fault to occur, one part of the data saving system would have to fail just before the year change and carry the 1999 date over to 2000. FAA computer specialists on Tuesday discovered that if the host system crashed and had to reboot just after the rollover to Jan. 1, then it would choose the 1999 backup data rather than that labeled 2000 because "99" was a bigger number than "00." The fix implemented in all host computers earlier Thursday tells the computer during the reboot to retreive the "00" data. "We put in a patch to address a one in a million shot," said Takemoto. The problem would fix itself in 10 seconds as the host resumed using new data instead of stored aircraft positions, he added. Controllers also would have seen the plane images jump back and known the information was incorrect.

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